130
There has been some speculation that the group of words ending in -um (de-lam, ki-lam, etc) represent a specific grammatical form. But in Tong, these words are given as a basic form and in nearly all cases are derived from English words which end in -l or -ll; si-bui-lam (spoil), de-lam (tell), go-lam (call), gi-lam (kill), bui-lam (boil), and se-lam (sell). It is worth noting that all these are verbs. I speculate that these were first introduced into Pidgin in their present participle form (-ing) and that through an East China dialect, the syllable in (lam in Cantonese) was used to represent -ing in English. Let's look at some other well-known Pidgin words with less obvious derivations.
Chop
Hobson Jobson and other major sources give as the origin the Hindi word, chhap, a word denoting an official stamp or the act of emprinting. Macau patoa: chapa - Documento oficial emanado das autoridades chinesas. Marca, selo, carimbo. (G. N. Batalha). Tong Ting Shue lists the word as a measure (chop) of tea. The character used is chaap, “to insert”.
Chop chop
Most sources give as the origin of chop-chop a Chinese word with a similar sound. Hobson Jobson offers a number of dialect pronunciations of the word pronounced in Cantonese gap. None of these is particularly near to the sound chop.
Tong writes it as jap-jap, the characters for "to pick up". This does not help. We have searched a number of Chinese dialect vocabularies and failed, so far, to find any Chinese word in any dialect denoting “quick, fast” which sounds as if it could have been the origin of chop-chop.
Chop-sticks
The OED and all other major sources are persuaded by the argument that the word is connected to the Pidgin chop-chop, meaning quick. That is, the Chinese eat with sticks, the sticks enable them to eat fast, therefore they should be called "fast-sticks". The Macau patoa word is faichi.
130
There has been some speculation that the group of words ending in -um (de-lam, ki-lam, etc) represent a specific grammatical form, But in Tong, these words are given as a basic form and in nearly all cases are derived from English words which end in -1 or -11; si-bui-lam (spoil), de- lam, (tell), go-lam (call), gi-lam, (kill), bui-lam (boil), and se- lam (sell), It is worth noting that all these are verbs. I speculate that these were first introduced into Pidgin in their present participle form (-ing) and that through an East China dialect, the syllable in (lam in Cantonese) was used to represent -ling in English. Let's look at some other well-known Pidgin words with less obvious derivations.
Chop
Hobson Jobson and other major sources give as the origin the Hindi word, chhap, a word denoting an official stamp or the act of emprinting, Macau patoa: chapa - Documento oficial emanado das autoridades chinesas. Marca, selo, carimbo. (G. N. Batalha). Tong Ting Shue lists the word as a measure (chop) of tea. The character used is chaap, “to insert".
Chop chop
Most sources give as the origin of chop-chop a Chinese word with a similar suond. Hobson Jobson offers a number of dialect pronunciations of the word pronounced in Cantonese gap, None of these is particularly near to the sound chop.
Tong writes it as jap-jap, the characters for "to pick up”, This does not help. We have searched a number of Chinese dialect vocabularies and failed, so far, to find any Chinese word in any dialect denoting “quick, fast” which sounds as if it could have been the origin of chop- chop.
Chop-sticks
The OED and all other major sources are persuaded by the argument that the word is connected to the Pidgin chop-chop, meaning quick. That is, the Chinese eat with sticks, the sticks enable them to eat fast, therefore they should be called "fast-sticks", The Macau patoa word is faichi.
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